"People check tires, tow bars and chickens."--United...

--United Airlines customer service representative Kenny Mak, on the carry-on cargo he's seen during holiday seasons.

"The kids are lazy. They don't want to work. They dress terrible. I can't hire them. And the older people don't want to work for six bucks. They want $9 an hour."

--Harris Friedman, on getting help for the holiday season at the sportswear shop he manages in Lake Grove, N.Y.

"It was there in the seas off the Irish coast that I first learned to swim, there that my father took me to my first pub, a remote little house in the country, for a Guinness, a taste I've never forgotten and which is always a pleasure to repeat."

--Tony Blair, reminiscing about his childhood vacations in County Donegal during the first speech ever delivered by a British prime minister to the Irish parliament.